Meeting Challenges with Positivity

2. Meeting Challenges with Positivity

“Any job where you can feel like you make a difference is important to me.”

—Tatiana Torres

VF Brands

Podcast Transcription

Michael:

Hello, I’m Michael Kurland, CEO and Co-Founder of Branded Group. Welcome to the #BeBetter Podcast. To me, our company’s mantra to “Be Better” is more than a tagline; it’s a culture that permeates our organization, propelling our team to Be Better to each other, our customers and our communities as well as to ourselves. Each week on the #BeBetter podcast, I interview leaders who authentically exemplify how they are being better in their professional and personal lives.

Today’s podcast is dedicated to Second Harvest Food Bank of Orange County whose mission is to end hunger in Orange County, California. The #BeBetter team has participated in their “Adopt a Pantry” program, where we organized 7,655 pounds of fresh food that was then made available to those in need. We also recently hosted our #BeBetter Together Virtual 5K and raised $1500 for the food bank. Learn more about how you can get involved at https://www.feedoc.org/.

We started this journey about six years ago to #BeBetter. We moved out to California and started Branded Group. Coming from another company in our industry where things weren’t always better. We learned everything – me and my two business partners. We learned everything in this industry, how to do what we do, and how to do what we don’t want to do.

So, we started Branded Group and we started with being better to our employees, our subcontractors, our community, and our clients. And in 2020, I started our fifth initiative of being better to ourselves.

I want to welcome Tatiana Torres today to the show. She is with VF. Tatiana and I are great friends. She’s been on this #BeBetter journey with Branded Group for about five years.

Tatiana Torres:

Yeah, I would say about five years. Five and a half.

Michael:

Five and a half?

Tatiana Torres:

Yes. I feel like I’ve been able to progress on this journey with you, almost the whole time. So it’s very special to me as well.

Michael:

You’ve participated in a lot of our give backs to the community.

Tatiana Torres:

Yes.

Michael:

That’s one of the great initiatives and definitely one of the reasons why I wanted you to be one of our first guests on the show.

Tatiana Torres:

Awesome, well I’m happy to be here. Thank you.

Michael:

Thank you for being here. Why don’t you tell our audience what do you do and why do you do it?

Tatiana Torres:

I’m the retail facilities manager for VF. I’m sure people out there are asking what is VF? VF is a conglomerate of companies that includes Vans, Timberland, the Northface, and about eight other retail brands currently. I am the manager of the department that does all the retail facilities for all of their brick and mortar locations, their showrooms, and spaces of that nature. It’s definitely a very dynamic world.

I do it because any job where you can feel like you make a difference is important to me, even if it’s just somebody not having to deal with nonsense longer than they should. Whether it be an over-flowing toilet or whatever. I’ve been doing it for about six years in the current space.

Michael:

So why do you do it?

Tatiana Torres:

I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t get into it because it was a job. You know what I mean?

Michael:

Right.

Tatiana Torres:

We all live to make that paper, if you will. But I still do it because I feel like I’m good at it. Most days, anyway. I feel like it’s something where I can contribute to the store team’s experience, and by that extension the customer’s experience, by ensuring that I’m doing what I do as best as possible.

Michael:

Does that drive you? Working in there, trying to be better for your store team and your customers?

Tatiana Torres:

It does. I’m trying to get that same drive to my department at this time. I will say that there are a lot of challenges because of–while our goal is to be better for the store, and to be better for the customer, it’s not always an easy journey to do so.

Michael:

There’s a lot of red tape.

Tatiana Torres:

There’s a lot of red tape. There’s a lot of personality and a lot of other exterior challenges. Then just trying to bring that positivity and be better for those people, without letting all those exterior things get to you. You know what I mean?

Michael:

I do. I used to work for Jones Apparel group in a similar role as a facilities coordinator and I’d ask seven people to get an approval, and you had so much red tape. Then I went and worked for my last company, and I was the VP of Sales. What I learned there is that I could never work for somebody ever again. Which is part of the reason why I started Branded Group, because now I only answer to myself.

Tatiana Torres:

Right.

Michael:

So that’s great. Glad that we’re talking about being better at VF and for our customers and our internal customers. What I really want to know is what are you curious about right now?

Tatiana Torres:

Honestly, I would say, even kind of speaking to the challenges that I just listed is that I’m curious to see what other people, not just in my role, but in any customer service role, how they inject what they do with positivity in the face of challenges, so that you’re not constantly dwelling on the negative.

It’s not just about work, because first and foremost you can’t be better with people and bring that positivity to people if you’re not feeling it yourself. But then it carries over into your life. Everything that you do is attached to this negativity or to this mindset, and trying to figure that out and stay curious how people in all sorts of fields, how they find that balance.

Michael:

That’s a great word. How do you find balance?

Tatiana Torres:

Right now, it’s just trying to always look at other perspectives, right? I come into work, and the same thing with my team, and even into life, and I have one perspective. It might color my attitude that day, whether it be negative or positive, but just always trying to be mindful of the perspective coming from the other side.

Michael:

Absolutely. You mentioned the negativity. Now I would say we are both very positive people and that’s why we are considered people persons, but there’s days, right?

Tatiana Torres:

There really are.

Michael:

You’re just like, how do I bring this positivity–especially because you’re the boss at work, right? You have people reporting to you. You have bad days. So how do you shake that off and still come to work positively, to be better at work?

Tatiana Torres:

I will say that’s why I’m curious about it, because right now it’s very much a fake it until you make it kind of situation, where I’m trying to put on a good face for my team. Because I was definitely starting to feel that I was not portraying to my team what I wanted our department to be about. That was be positive and share, not to sound cheesy, but to be a light with other people, rather than allow other stuff to bring us down and to let that color how we do our job.

If you have one of those days and you let it get to you at work, and then you bring it home, then that colors all other interactions, right? It’s like a snowball effect.

I’m very much into reading some non-fiction right now, in regards to work-life balance, and bringing positivity into a negative situation. I think with the world around us, currently there is so much to be negative about, and trying to change the conversation or change the attitude in finding the bright spots and focusing on those.

Michael:

For those of you that don’t know, in the facilities world people don’t usually come to us and say “Hey, thank you so much for fixing our flooding toilet.” They’re like “our toilets flooding, fix it now.” You fix it and we hear “you didn’t get it done fast enough.“ Then when you do get it done, crickets.

Tatiana Torres:

Wow, it’s like an email I just read earlier today. Exactly. The reason you might be getting that communication, is because you didn’t fix it fast enough or it was too much money. Whatever it is, someone is yelling at somebody else. That “Hey, your sales were down from six to seven and you went over your P&L.” There’s so many outside stresses that everyone around us is dealing with and that’s just not at work but in life, and stepping back and trying to remember that, it’s hard. It’s definitely not an easy thing to do. It’s something easy to say, and not something easy to do.

Even in my personal life, I know people currently who are going through some pretty rough situations. My reaction to certain things in those interactions might be negative, because of what is important to me, and what I’m dealing with. Just remembering that what that other person is dealing with might be larger or just as important. You have to step back and be very aware of what other people are doing, even if you don’t know the details.

Michael:

I think that leads back to the balance that we were talking about. Because if you let it snowball, stuff rolls downhill. You go to work at 9 A.M., you get this terrible call, you get yelled at by your district manager because you didn’t fix the toilet fast enough, and that can carry through your whole day. You take it home, and then you’re going home to your friends and family and still in a bad mood because of some toilet in St. Louis, Missouri.

So we’ve got to find ways to be better and get that balance in our life. So, I like it.

Tatiana Torres:

You were saying I have participated in a lot of Branded give-back situations. One of the reasons I started to do give-back things of that nature, whether it be beach clean-ups, which are my passion, or the Habitat for Humanity builds–was because in this dark world of getting mired down by your job or life and all these other things, at least in those small moments you can feel like you did something to better someone’s life. Hopefully then use that experience to make your day better and carry that into whatever else is going on.

Michael:

Right. What Tatiana’s talking about is at Branded Group we have #BeBetter initiatives where we give back. We once had a One-for-One program where we donated a minute of time for every service call completed. We’ve grown so exponentially that we would have to hire someone full-time to just do charity work.

We work with Orange County Coast Keeper, Second Harvest Food Pantry, and Habitat for Humanity. We’ve helped build over 12 houses. You’ve been probably on at least three or four.

Tatiana Torres:

Two or three.

Michael:

Two or three, okay. We’ve done numerous beach clean-ups together for the residents of Orange County. As a side-note: don’t bring plastic straws or Styrofoam to the beach. It’s just a bad idea.

Tatiana Torres:

Every time we do a beach clean-up, the straws, at least I understand these. Because some people are so built into this culture of “I have to have my straw,” right? But the thing that blows my mind is Styrofoam. Where do people even get Styrofoam? It’s 2020, how is there Styrofoam still on the beach?

Michael:

It’s probably from 1967.

Tatiana Torres:

Even if you notice that someone else is having a bad day in the world around you, take a moment and think about how can I make that person’s day better? Because you do get a little bit of a high, right? That’s why people do it. There’s a reason people do charity work. It does give you this cosmic high where I feel like I did something good for someone. I feel like I made a difference in this huge world that’s around us and I’m looking to duplicate that as much as possible.

Michael:

When we started Branded Group, I was turning a profit for fixing toilets. I wasn’t feeling really great about what impression I was leaving upon the world, and that’s how we started with Habitat for Humanity back in 2015. I can say the programs that we have are so successful because we have over 85 employees now, plus all of our local customers and some of our subcontractors that join, even family members that join in with us. They’re not coming back because they’re happy building this house, they’re coming back because the feeling they’re getting inside, right? That’s what brings them back and that’s what keeps me pushing this forward. I’m making a difference now, right? I know you with the beach clean-ups. You’ve done them without Branded Group on your own and you’ve done a bunch of projects for Vans. Do you want to talk a little bit about that?

Tatiana Torres:

As a company VF and Vans are also, just like Branded Group, very much interested in giving back to the community around us. We shut down two days a year to do give-back projects. One we do for Earth day, which is usually more environmentally oriented, and we do another called Vans Give-Back day, where we shut down and go work in the community however we can. The beach clean-ups specifically were very important to me, so I worked with another organization, now called Connex. They were doing all these networking events, like happy hours. Everyone goes and you network, which is fine and it’s fun. But at the same time how can we still get the same interactions, but turn it into something positive for the world around us?

So we did a beach clean-up, where we invited a bunch of people, including retailers and service providers. Come and do this beach clean-up together. We’ll do a mixer afterwards, but at least we can feel like we did something first. If everyone does a happy hour Thursday at 4 P.M., that gets tired. To do a beach clean-up and then have like brunch with drinks at least adds a little flavor to the weekend.

Tatiana Torres:

Then outside of business world, I’m very interactive in what’s called Dodger’s Twitter, which is just people who like the Dodgers and they’re all about social media.

One of the things we’ve been trying to plan, we’ve been trying to get it done the last two years, but people are so busy and it’s hard to coordinate that many people, Let’s say the Dodgers have a road game, so you don’t have to drive to the stadium, and you don’t have to get there early, and you don’t have to do all those things.. What if we all met up together at a local Los Angeles beach and did a beach clean-up. We’ll all wear our Dodger gear and then go to a local bar and all watched the game together. Because that social interaction is what the community was created for. Using that community to do something better in the world. Because beach clean-ups are my passion and we live here in southern California, where the beach is part of our everyday life, is why it’s really important to us as the local community.

Michael:

So you took your platform of Dodger’s Twitter, and you put your two passions in life, the Dodgers and beach clean-ups, and you melded them together.

Tatiana Torres:

Exactly.

Tatiana Torres:

We’re trying to work with, and have made some initial communications, with a couple different institutions in the Dodgers world. We reached out to a lot of on-screen news broadcast personalities for the Dodgers, as well as the Dodgers foundation. Maybe the first event is just fans. But if we wanted to do something in conjunction with the team as a larger entity, maybe not directly with the team, but with people who work with the team, what would that look like and how would we do that?

Then even when it’s just the fans, would you be willing to post about it, so that we can get the word out there. You never know how many people are going to show up.

Michael:

This sounds like being better, for sure.

Tatiana Torres:

There’s so much negativity around us. How can we take those little moments and turn them into something bigger to be better?

Michael:

How many do you have at your corporate office?

Tatiana Torres:

Now it’s over 600.

Michael:

Over 600 employees, to go do two days of purpose.

Tatiana Torres:

One of my biggest challenges currently with my team is figuring out how to get them to feel that way. What I’m trying to do is, even if it’s just positive reinforcement verbally. For example, if I overhear them have a bad call, or if I overhear them complaining about something because of the negativity, I first ask a question. Maybe that other person is doing that because of x, y, and z. But I’m also encouraging my team and tell them that customers are always going to ask for it to be faster and cheaper and whatever. It might never be faster and cheaper and whatever enough. Even though it’s easier to say than do, don’t let it get to you.

Remember that if you step away from your desk for 10 minutes, the world is not going to fall apart. The toilet is still not going to get fixed any faster. If you need to do is to take a mental health break – 10 minutes, go take a lap.

Vans offers a lot of learning classes, it’s not just business topics, but  other “how to” classes. Vans offers all these different outlets to be creative or to learn or to just to better your life. It was getting to the point where members of my team felt like we can’t do those things, because there’s not enough time. If we step away from our desk, this won’t get done. If this doesn’t get done, it’s going to snowball. Somebody’s going to yell, and then it’s going to look bad on our department.

So taking that burden from my team and saying listen, that’s not your problem. Yes, we want to be the best that we can be, but also it’s important that you be the best person you can be. So if you want to go take that class, if you want to go watch that band perform at the office, or whatever thing is being held, go do that. I can watch this stuff while you’re gone. Then conversely, so that I don’t get mired in it, I’ll say “Hey guys I’m going to step away for a little bit. If there’s an emergency I’ll take care of it and you can just text me and I’ll deal with it.”

I want to be encouraging to my team and let them know that the work is not the end of the world. Yes, it’s important, and what we do is very time sensitive sometimes. But at the same time, remembering that our mental well-being and our attitude is more important than that sometimes.

Well, and actually, just to add some insight, I actually talked with you about it not too long ago. We had a meetup where we were talking about that, and you said something about, “What do you do with your team? Do you do team bonding events?”  I had never even thought of that because we’re living in this day-to-day of everything has to happen right now. I’m trying to figure out the best way to do that with my team, whether it be splitting up the team and doing maybe a bonding event with like half so maybe the other half can work and that mental burden of thinking that something is going to get missed is not as present.

Or is it saying our department’s going to be gone for a couple hours. We will deal with emergencies, but other than that we’re going to “peace out” for a few hours.

That’s definitely something I’m still working on right now, because I know it’s going to be so important in ensuring my department doesn’t self-implode.

Michael:

It goes back to the culture that you develop. I know your department very well, and you have a lot of younger people there. To answer the other question of how do you get them to care? You have to have other things besides money to motivate your team. Whether it be a happy hour or a beach clean-up together, or some sort of team bonding event. You’ve got to get them involved in your culture, and you have to have a good culture.

Everyone’s going to have a bad day, and there’s going to be yelling and screaming.

Michael:

We’re getting close to wrapping up here. All right, this is my last question. I want to end with this.

What do you consider yourself to be an expert at, and what is your advice to our listeners on how to better in your expertise? Please, please talk about Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Tatiana Torres:

I would say that my expertise is being passionate about certain things and stepping away to embrace that passion. Yes, the Marvel Cinematic Universe sometimes is the recipient of that passion or even other nerdy things. Like this morning, I had the last two days off, and I knew that I was going to come in and it was going to be very busy. But the new Stranger Things teaser trailer dropped this morning. I know that that’s important to a lot of the people on my team, because we’re all a bunch of nerds. So I said “Hey guys, let’s watch the trailer.” Find that thing that you’re passionate about.

For some people, like myself, it’s nerdy things. Whether it be debating with you via text why Iron Man is not as bad as I originally thought him to be.

Michael:

Iron Man 2 is a good movie.

Tatiana Torres:

Okay. But also, whatever your passion is, taking time for it. Is it baseball? Is it basketball? Is it hiking? Is it, like you said, you have to get your workout done every morning. What is your passion? Give time to your passion every day.

Michael:

Great. Well, thank you so much Tatiana. It’s been a pleasure having you on the show. If people wanted to get in touch with you, or look up your company, what would be a way they could do that?

Tatiana Torres:

VF is very easily found on the internet. I am available via LinkedIn. I try to share as much as the Be Better message from you guys as well as what we’re doing good at Vans on my LinkedIn.

Vans, that’s where my office is based, has a great social media presence for just their creativity in their community, and I would recommend everybody follow the Vans Custom Culture on Instagram. It really brings light into your life, whether it’s skate videos or seeing people’s art and music and just expression.

Michael:

Great. And thank you. If you guys want to get in touch with me, www.branded-group.com is our website or you can look me up on LinkedIn Michael Kurland.

I’d like to take a minute to thank you, our valued listeners. My intention is for this podcast to inspire you, in some way, to be better.  Change starts from within and radiates outward. Therefore, start with being better to yourself and only then will you recognize how to be better others and your community. Thank you for joining us today! If you want to learn more about Branded Group, then visit us at www.branded-group.com. From our website you can follow us on social media. Also, always feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn. Until next time, Be Better.